water and swimming

I decided I was going to write a diary entry, but then it occurred to me that I had nothing to write about. I'm drinking a juice glass-full of water, with small particles surfing among the waves. Across from the Japanese classroom at school, there lies an infamous drinking fountain that produces water that appears to be milk. It returns to its normal state after waiting a few minutes and allowing the sediments to sink to the bottom.

Last year when I took band at middle school, the teacher popped in a video saturated with high levels of lameness. In an attempt to make my own fun, I cupped my hand underneath the spout of the drinking fountain and let some water splash into my hands. I peered closely at the water in the dark and noticed some contented organisms paddling through the water. There is a perfectly valid explanation as to why the school water was wrought with little swimming things. The explanation? The school staff members wanted to kill us.

I threw the water onto the floor.

In the second grade, I was a member of the YMCA because of the swimming lessons I took every Tuesday night therein. I only attended them for a year; I was unable to graduate onto the next level due to the fact that I was unable to meet the requirements necessary to perform the dead man's float. In other words, the instructor wanted me to lie on my stomach with my face submerged in water and only come up for air every twenty seconds. However, in this amount of time I lost the ability to float, as the lack of air robbed my body of its buoyancy. I could float tranquilly on my back for hours, but that wasn't sufficient -- I couldn't pass until I nearly killed myself, you realize. I tried to illustrate the unimportance of this ability to my instructor. Naturally, the point was to calm your breathing and slow down your metabolism so you could survive for a much longer period of time. Meanwhile, as you're relaxing under the sun among the placid waves, you inadvertently fall asleep, and by the time to wake up you're too disoriented to save your rapidly sinking body. In other words, why the hell would I want to perfect a stroke that's called the "dead man's float?" Doesn't that say something about the success of exercising that technique? Sweet fuck.

I didn't return until several months later, when a former friend of mine (Malia), her younger sister, and her mom brought us to the pool for whatever reason. Due to other circumstances I can no longer recall, I thought it'd be the epitome of slick to wear my swimsuit under my clothes, and then wear my underwear over my swimsuit. When I slipped my shirt and pants off so I could dive into the pool, Malia's mom noticed the senile way in which my underwear had been pulled on over my swimsuit, and she busted up laughing until tears prickled at the corners of her eyes. A hand on the lockers to prevent her from toppling over in a fit of hysterical laughter, she exclaimed that she wished she had her camera.

I never did that again.